Nick's Homebrew Bar and Entertainment Area - Page 19

Hi Andy, good to hear from you. How is your build coming along?

RTRose,

You are in to football, home theaters and drinking beer. So am I! Sounds like reason enough for a road trip to me.

Well, I was starting to get a little nervous. I was actually starting to prepare myself for the thought that I may actually have to carry the last of the plywood into the basement myself . I decided to work on the curve of the stage a bit to distract myself from the task at hand. Just as I started to cut the first piece of wood, my wife let me know that I had a couple of visitors. The neighbor boys stopped by and finished up carrying the last of the plywood into the basement. It only took them about 45 minutes to finish. I couldn't help but pay them extra. They worked hard and they even sang songs while working! Can't beat that.

If tomorrow goes well at work I will be taking Friday off. That means a four day weekend with the holiday. I may actually make some progress on the theater.


Quick question -- Do bass shakers (or similar) require an outlet, or just speaker wire? I am trying to plan the wiring that will be in the riser. I am planning to have an outlet for each chair (they are powered), but do I need an outlet for anything else on the riser?

Thanks Mike, that video was helpful. I plan to run all of the riser outlets on the same circuit as the wall outlets. There is not much power usage and very little chance that they will all be used at once.

I will investigate the plate amps some more. It looks like there are several posts in the transducer sub-forum about bass shakers. The good news is that my rack will be on the riser, so I can run wires inside the riser from the rack if I need to, and they won't be seen. I can just put a connecter plate in the floor at each chair.

I didn't end up getting the entire day off yesterday, but I did spend a few hours working on the theater. I continued to work on the stage. After mocking up a few ideas for the curve, I finally decided I didn't want the curve sticking out too far into the room because of the position of the door. I wanted the floor area in the front of the room to be open as you walk through the door. I thought it wouldn't look right if the curve was sticking out into this space. I just hope the curve isn't too subtle and looks right. My biggest fear is that it will look more "pointed" than "rounded" Hopefully I will know later today.

Here are a couple of shots of the framing for the curve:





I also bought a new toy today. I have been into woodworking for years and have always thought about buying a pocket screw jig, but never did for some reason. I was trying to figure out how I was going to attach the corners of my stage and thought this would be a great solution. I knew that it would also come in handy when building my bar and the cabinets behind the bar, so I decided to purchase a Kreg kit. All I can say is, I can't believe I didn't buy one years ago! This thing is extremely simple to use and the joints are extremely strong.



I put three holes on each side of the angled stage corner pieces (total of 6 screws), but two is enough per side. After putting just one screw on each end, the piece of wood was very solid and didn't move at all. It also pulled the joints together very tight. I wish I had bought one of these a long time ago. I'm sure I will use it quite a bit.



I'm hoping to get the plywood for the curve cut today and then begin work on the step. Once that is done, I can begin putting sand in the stage.

I drilled the holes before putting it in place. The best way to do it is to clamp it to your bench similar to this picture:



In a pinch, you can use it in place to repair a hole or attach something to an existing board. Unlike the person in this picture, you are supposed to mount it to the work using a screw so you can keep your hand out of the way and to make sure the jig doesn't move.



The screws that they recommend are self tapping so that they don't split the wood and have a square drive head so that you don't strip the slot. The screws are a bit pricey (much cheaper in bulk online), but they are worth it. I lucked out. The Home Depot by me is swapping out a bunch of their merchandise, so I was able to buy several boxes of 100 screws for $1.60.

I just bent a piece of plywood for the curve of the stage and HATED it. It looked awful. I started mocking up some supports for the curve to experiment with different curve shapes instead of trying to come up with a mathematical method. I think I am getting closer to what I want.

Several people here on AVS sent me suggestions on how to make a curve. I think it is time to go back and revisit their advice. I think the results will be much better.

I am going to try another method using a string and measurements between the widest points. We will see how it works out.

Tim, If you have some time to kill and wouldn't mind plotting it out, I would be curious to see what you come up with. The width is 14' and the center comes out 13 inches.

Thanks Tim! This will be a huge help. I will go give these measurements a try.

Well, I finally made some progress with the curve on my stage. After several attempts using a trial and error method, I ended up using the calculations provided by Mr. Tim. It came out great. Once that was completed, I was able to quickly add the lower step. I decided to use my kreg jig to add the supports from the front side. I was once again pleasantly surprised at how easy it was and how tightly they hold.










I was hoping to have the plastic cut and a couple of bags of sand in each cavity, but that didn't happen. I did spend some time mocking up some ideas for the stairs on my riser. I think I have the design I am going to go with. More info to come in the next few days.

I also used 3/8" plywood. I could have probably made 1/2" work, but bending it would have been more difficult. Because it isn't actually providing any support, I thought 3/8" would be fine. I am using two layers of 3/4" OSB for the top of the stage and riser.

It does look really wide. I thought there were some other stages that were the same width. I will have to look for some photos. I'm wondering if I should have made the corners a bit wider. They are 12" wide before they start to angle. I could have probably gone 18" wide.

I thought about designing something unique, but I like this design so much that I thought I would just use it. Other than AVS members, no one else will know I stole this design . I can't remember who it was, but someone had referred to it as the "AVS stage".

My room is approximately 19' wide. I ended up buying 5,000 pounds of sand . I did the math on it multiple times and that should be about right. I think it was Sandman who orginally estimated a smaller number and ended up needing 80 bags. At this point I hope I am right because I don't want to haul any of it back out of the basement.

Tonight I spent about an hour down in the theater cutting the pieces for the curve on the front of the riser. There will be a step on either side of the riser. My original plan was to have the curve continue to either side of the curved chairs, then extend forward 12 inches beside the chairs forming a step/platform and have the face of the steps continue the shape of the curve. It would be similar to the step on the left side of the drawing below. I apologize for the size of the picture. I just did a quick scan of my drawing.



The issue with this design is that there wouldn't be enough room to open the door if I extend the steps forward that far. Because of this, it looks like I am stuck with a step being integrated into the curve on both sides of the riser. Similar to the step on the right side of the drawing. Here is what the curve looks like with the supports mocked up (no step yet).



One last idea would be to curve the front of the riser and then recess the step into the curve instead of extending it out. That may look nice too. I don't know if I have seen anything like that on AVS (with a curved step).

I need to think about this a bit more.

I like the idea of the integrated step. The other idea I had is to stop the curve after the chairs (at the 34" mark) and then make the remainder of the riser straight with an integrated step. Having a curved step causes you to step up towards the wall. The straight step would allow you to step up besides the chair. I need to look at the plan to see where my columns are supposed to be to see if any of the designs interferes with the speaker placement.

I will try to get a wider photo. I need to finish editing post one. That was my original design which has been completely thrown out the window. Hopefully I can fix that as well - I just don't want to take away from build time to fix posts .

Tonight I played around a bit with the integrated step. I think it is going to look best if I keep the curve all the way to the end of the riser and integrate the step. It is hard to tell without the actual curve in place, but here are a couple of pictures:





Tim, here is the shot of the door wall you asked about: